


Green Coat White Horse

by Mjazilem



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: 1x01, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Hurt Ben, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, Upset Caleb, Whump, pilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-03-07 17:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mjazilem/pseuds/Mjazilem
Summary: “dragoon... I'm... dragoon...” spoke the muddy bloody figure barely over a whisper as he was hauled into camp. He couldn't be heard over the jeers of the soldiers reacting to the green of the coat he wore.orBenjamin makes it back after narrowly escaping the Queens Rangers and is in rough shape. Caleb reacts to the news of the slaughter and the aftermath.





	1. Chapter 1

“dragoon... I'm... dragoon...” spoke the muddy bloody figure barely over a whisper as he was hauled into camp. He couldn't be heard over the jeers of the soldiers reacting to the green of the coat he wore. He was too weak and exhausted to raise his voice any higher.

 

The men holding him unceremoniously dragged him in front of the nearest officer and dropped in at their feet.

 

His knees hit the ground and pain like a lightning strike ripped through him. Pain flared from his shoulder. His already blurred sight narrowed down to nothing, the last thing he heard before darkness took him was a far off voice with the slightest hint of recognition say his name... “Tallmadge”

 

* * *

 

A white horse covered in blood with an empty saddle crossed the path of the New York regiment as they headed towards the continental camp. Some of the men took it for a bad omen. Caleb didn't know if he'd call it an omen but the horse did give him an unsettled feeling.

 

They came across two more the same as the first, white, covered in mud and blood, without a rider.

 

Caleb took the reigns of one and looked into the eye of the spooked mount. He could feel in his gut that something bad had happened. Something in the back of his mind told him to whom it had happened. He ignored the thought as long as he could.

 

He wasn't ready to admit these were Connecticut Dragoon horses.

 

All he could think as they kept moving was 'you better be alright Benny boy, you better be alright.'

 

* * *

 

 

He was being moved, his head lulled to the side and he felt disconnected from what was going on around him. There were people, their hands and voices were much softer than before. Someone pressed a bottle to his lips, rum hit his tongue and burned down his throat. He fought to keep his eyes open he had something important to tell them but he lost the words in the fog that was surrounding his brain. Suddenly a white hot pain flooded his shoulder and words didn't exist at all.

 

All his brain and mouth could do was scream.

 

* * *

 

 

There was a somber mood in the camp when New York got there. Soldiers in the camp who saw the horses they led stared and whispered. At the stable soldiers ran to collect the horses.

 

Caleb didn't see anymore of the dragoon's mounts.

 

“Where did you find these beasts?” One of the soldiers asks.

 

Caleb feels a sense of dread threatening to over take him. He doesn't answer the young man instead asks a question of his own. “Where are the Connecticut Dragoons?”

 

The young soldier in front of him paled and the one next to him shook his head. “It was a massacre...”

 

“No one survived...”

 

Caleb sucks in a breath, he goes cold. 'no no no'

 

“Detail has been sent to bury...”

 

Caleb doesn't wait for the soldier to finish his statement. He pushes past through the men surrounding the corral and heads to the tents.

 

* * *

 

 

“Settle down son.” Ben tries to push away from the hands that are holding him. The hands hold him down and his mind tells him a bayonet is coming for him next. He wants to open his eyes and fight but his doesn't have to strength. He can't break through the fog.

 

“Stop him thrashing or the stitches will tear.”

 

“I'm trying sir but the fever's got hold of him and he's delirious.”

 

Suddenly there's a coolness on his forehead, then around his face and neck. The feeling is a revelation. Ben sighs relieved. His brain calms and sleep takes him.

 

* * *

 

Ben's tent is empty, he's not there, not at the desk or on the bed. He hasn't been there, not in days, it's just as he always left it when going out on patrol. He hadn't come back and now he never would.

 

Caleb's knees go weak and he sinks down hard onto the chair. Ben, his best friend, his Benny Boy was gone.

 

The tears that well in his eyes burn before they fall.

 

* * *

 

“Get him up.”

 

“General Scott his fever has only just broken, I don't think it would be wise...”

 

“That man in there is the only one who knows what happened to a whole regiment of dragoons. I need answers, so Doctor get him up and ready to answer my questions. You've got an hour.”

 

* * *

 

“Captain Tallmadge... Captain...” A voice breaks threw the void of dreamless sleep and then smashes the brief peace he had found. His surroundings flood in around him and his circumstances crash down on him.

 

He forces his heavy eyelids open and then screws them tightly closed against the light from the fire that he's laying next to. He breaths in steadily through his nose to collect himself.

 

His whole body hurts and a massive headache is threatening to splitting his skull and that pales in comparison to the throbbing in his shoulder.

 

“Captain Tallmadge you must wake up, General Scott needs you to speak with him...”

 

“What happened..?” Ben is confused and his voice is rough to his own ears. He opens his eyes again and looks around.

 

He's in a kitchen on a cot near the hearth with the camp doctor and his assistant.

 

Ben looks down and finds bandages around his bare chest.

 

“The ball went through your shoulder. We've stitched you up and dressed it.” The doctor explained before he's up any moving around, Ben's head swam as he tried to watch. “Lets get you up and ready for the general.”

 

The doctor's assistant takes Ben by the good shoulder and helps him sit up. Everything hurts, Ben holds his shoulder and groans. It hurts worse than any other pain he's felt before.

  
“Drink this.” The Doctor puts a warm mug into the hand Ben doesn't have wrapped around his middle. “It should help keep the fever down and help with the pain.” Ben recognizes the not particularly pleasant taste of feverfew tea.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Caleb feels numb, he doesn't feel anything he should.

 

The act of mourning Ben takes him over completely.

 

When the supper bell sounds he's not hungry, when the sun goes down and he should make for his tent to sleep he doesn't. He lets the sun sink and the darkness surround him.

 

He can't be bothered to light a candle. The darkness is almost a comfort.

 

He stays where he is, not moving. It's as if moving would be admitting to himself Ben was truly gone. So he stays, stays where he can still feel Ben's presence just a little longer.

 

The camp has quieted, most men are probably gathered around fires or tucked into their beds. There's a chill in the air that's creeping up Caleb's spine. He runs his hands across his face and signs at the wetness still on his cheeks.

 

“I'm sorry for being a blubbery mess, Tall boy.” Caleb speaks into the open air. “You deserve more than the likes of me ta mourn ya.”

 

Before he can wax poetical about wailing women and viking funerals a light appears outside the tent.

 

Caleb's breath catches in his throat and his romantic's heart dares to dream...

 

A young soldier with a lantern pushes aside the flap on the tent, Caleb squints in the sudden light and the soldier jumps at the unexpected appearance of Caleb. “Oi, what are you doing in here?” He asks accusingly and the soldier behind him moves so he can see.

 

Caleb stands with his hand on the hilt of the knife on his belt, well in the soldier's view. “What are you doing here! Come to steal from a dead man?”

 

“What are you on about? We're here on orders. You're the one here in the dark.”

 

“Under orders, in the dark, what could be that important here that it couldn't wait til morning?”

 

“General Scott sent us to get Captain Tallmadge's clothes.”

 

Caleb sucks in a breath and his resolve cracks. He hadn't thought about Ben... Ben's body being brought back. He just figured Ben would be buried with the rest of the men, where they fell in the field. It's probably what Ben would want anyway.

 

“Where... where do they they have him?” Caleb's voice cracks as he asks. “the root cellar?”

 

“The root cellar? Why would they... no the Captain's in the kitchen. He's warmer than you or I with the hearth burning.”

 

“In the kitchen? That's no place to lay a...” Caleb stops himself as the realization dawns on him. He doesn't want to say it in case he's wrong but he has to know. “he's alive? Ben's... alive...”

 

“Aye,” The man says as if he doesn't know he's turning Caleb's world on its head. “he's with General Scott now. General Scott insisted he give his account of what happened to the Dragoons...”

 

“The doctor would have him a bed but General Scott was insistent...”

 

“He's Alive!!”

 

“He is.”

 

Caleb can't get out of the tent fast enough.

 

He runs through the dark rows of tents towards the farmhouse that the General uses as his headquarters. Then heads around back to the door of the summer kitchen where he's stopped by one of General Scott's men.

 

“Where do you think you're going?”

 

“Is Ben Tallmadge in there?”

 

“He is.”

 

“Then I'm going in there.”

 

“No you're not.”

 

“Not till the general is done.”

 

“I don't give a rats ass what the...”

 

“Brewster!” Caleb stops what he's about to say and turns to see the Doctor coming his way. “Caleb come here.” The older man insists.

 

Caleb is torn, he's like to tell the old man to stuff it and push his way into the kitchen past the guard. But the doc has been nice to him over the years and it doesn't do well to get on the bad side of a man who might be sewing him up some day. Caleb takes a step back.

 

* * *

 

 

Ben stands watching General Scott unsure of what to do next.

 

Ben sighs as he scrubs his hand down his face. It's a shuttered breath a release of all the pent up frustration he feels towards General Scott. The man was insufferable.

 

Men were slaughtered and Scott can't see past his own stubbornness to understand that something more was needed or there was going to be more pointless death. Continentals picked off like fish in a barrel. A chill runs through him as the memory rushes back.

 

They are surrounded.

 

They are trapped.

 

They had no warning.

 

“Ben? Ben... hey, tall boy?” A voice cuts through the noise of gun fire and shouting.

 

* * *

 

 

Caleb enters the kitchen quietly, unsure of what he's going to find.

 

The doc had told him Ben had been wounded but his fever had broken.

 

When he sees Ben standing in the middle of the kitchen all of Caleb's bashfulness disappears and he hurries in to greet his friend. Only Ben doesn't respond like Caleb expects.

 

Usually he would smile and open his arms to hug Caleb enthusiastically. Now he doesn't seem to see Caleb at all.

 

Caleb slows. His feeling of joyous relief at seeing Ben alive and standing in front of him were quickly overshadowed by worry when he sees Ben bandaged and bleeding, starring at the open air. Looking pale in the fire light with glassy eyes certainly hinting at fever.

 

Maybe General Scott had pushed to far too soon, damn him. Hadn't Ben been through enough.

 

 

“You with me?” a familiar voice asks with concern.

 

His eyes focus and he can see he's in the general's kitchen and not on the road surrounded by death. He blinks and suddenly a face is in front of his, he feels a hand resting gently on his uninjured shoulder.

 

“Ca...” It takes a second for Ben to come back to himself. “Caleb!” he smiles, and moves to throw his arms around his friend but is stopped short by the pain reasserts itself. Ben hisses as he winces and holds his right arm.

 

“Whoa whoa there.” Caleb tightens his grip on Ben's shoulder to keep him up right. “You should sit down before you fall.”

 

Ben chuckles softly but it turns into more of a sob and his expression falls. “we... I... I should have...”

 

The look he gives Caleb is a tortured one.

 

“Hey...” Caleb helps Ben to the cot back by the fire.

 

pull a chair around and sit as close as he can to try and offer some kind of comfort. He keeps a hand on Ben's thigh as much to ground Ben as himself. “this was not your fault. It was an ambush.”

 

“they... they came out of nowhere, they had to have known we were coming, they were ready...” Ben's eyes start to lose focus as he's drawn back into the memory. “Caleb, they were Rangers.” He nods his head towards the table. Caleb sees the dark green beret of the Queens Rangers confirming the rumors.

 

They had a fierce and deadly reputation. Caleb looks at Ben, looks him up and down, it's a damn miracle he was alive and in the shape he was. Caleb's in awe that he'd escaped the rangers.

 

Caleb puts a hand on Ben's forehead to check his temperature and speak softly. “We'll get them next time, send every last one to Hell for what they've done.”

 

“It won't bring them back.”

 

“No, but it's what they deserve.”

 

Ben shifts uncomfortably on his chair, his engery fading.

 

“Are you hurt anywhere else, anything I should know about.”

 

“I'm fine.”

 

“You will be if I have a say in it. Got ta get you back in tip top shape.” Caleb looks around the kitchen and spots the bed by the fire. “Come on I'll help you back to bed.”

 

Caleb pulls up a chair after he gets Ben settled. Ben gives him a look and Caleb shuts him down before he can argue. “I'll not be leaving tonight.”

 

“Caleb you don't have to stay...”

 

“I thought I'd lost you and now you're here, so I'll be staying.”

 

“You thought you'd lost me?”

 

“Worst six hours of this bloody war so far...”

 

“Thank you”

 

“For what?”

 

“For staying.”

 

“Hum, just rest, heal up. I'm here.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. Leave a Comment for internet hugs and brownies!!


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